


Oh, You Have A Flag

by riddikulusgrin (klavgavtrash)



Series: Ace/Aro Fics [6]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Asexual Arthur Pendragon, Asexual Character, Asexuality, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-07
Updated: 2014-04-07
Packaged: 2018-01-18 11:14:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1426435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/klavgavtrash/pseuds/riddikulusgrin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's kind of a big deal when your boyfriend tells you he's asexual, but to Merlin, Arthur is more than worth it. Not that that stops him asking hundreds of questions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Oh, You Have A Flag

**Author's Note:**

> So I've written asexual!Merlin, but I find myself quite drawn to the idea of asexual!Arthur, too. This is basically one long conversation in fic form, because I really like writing dialogue at the moment.

“So, are we going to talk about this asexuality stuff?” Merlin was lying on the bed in Arthur’s dorm room, his feet in the air and his head propped up in his hands.

Arthur rubbed his forehead. “Is there anything _left_ to talk about?”

“Well, yeah.” said Merlin, keeping his tone bright, but picking a the duvet cover as he spoke. “My best-friend-turned-boyfriend doesn’t want to have sex with me. That feels worth talking about.”

“You said you were fine with it.” said Arthur, his back to him. He was working on his essay, and had his laptop and hundreds of course notes sprawled out in front of him.

“And I am! I really, truly am. I’m just also really curious, is all. You’ve literally told me nothing about asexuality but a dictionary definition.”

“Google it.”

Merlin groaned, letting his elbows slip and his chin hit the bed. “But that’s _effort_.”  he said.

“Tough.” said Arthur, flicking through his notes.

“It’d be much easier if you just told me.” 

“Merlin, this essay is due tomorrow and I’m still five hundred words short.”

Merlin harrumphed but shut up. The sound of typing filled the dorm room, and after a few minutes Merlin spoke again. “That has to be at least a hundred words.”

“Less than twenty, actually.”

Merlin heaved a dramatic sigh. “Well, if you’re not going tell me about asexuality, I’ll let the internet do it.”

“Be my guest.”

Merlin leaned over the edge of the bed and picked up Arthur’s iPad from the floor. “Asexuality.” He said aloud, sounding the word out as he typed IT into the search bar. “You know, this is just like the time I googled the sex talk because mum’s description wasn’t thorough enough.”

At that, he got a shudder from Arthur, but he still didn't look round from his work.

“Ooh, ok.” he said, scrolling down, “So we have a wiki page, a website literally called asexuality.org - wouldn't you expect that to come before the wiki? - and a TV tropes page. And then a whole load of newspaper articles.”

Merlin chose the BBC link, and immediately couldn’t stop himself from commenting. “Hey, Arthur, look.” he held up the iPad, but didn’t really expect Arthur to turn around. “The woman in this photo has rainbow hair… should I dye your hair rainbow colours?”

“Dye your own hair.”

Merlin twisted a finger around his dark brown hair that had grown a little too long since he’d been at uni. “Nah. I think the Smiths tshirt and art degree already say “gay” pretty loudly. Not sure I want to shout it so loud quite yet.”

At that, he got a snort. Pleased, he returned his attention to the article. It was basically an interview with somebody asexual, but he paused when he was around a quarter of the way down. “Arthur,” he said, “I want you to know that I don’t think you’re being selfish.”

“Thank you.”

“And I also don’t think you need to get your hormones checked.”

“Thank you.” said Arthur again.

“And I understand that if you had an unpleasant sexual encounter when you were younger it wouldn’t make your orientation less valid.”

“Merlin, I appreciate the sentiment. But please shut up.”

Merlin clicked is tongue but exited the page, switching to Google image search instead. “Ooh, you have a flag.” he said, almost startled by the sea of purple, grey, white and black. 

“Yes.”

The colour scheme was familiar, and it took Merlin a moment of staring to place it. “Oh! That bracelet you wear!”

Arthur raised his arm from the keyboard, displaying a thin wristband in the asexual colours and the woven leather bracelet Merlin had given to him as a birthday gift.

“I can’t believe I never once wondered what that was about.”

“Why would you?”

“Well, normally all your accessories come with backstories.”

“Thats-“

“Really pretentious, yeah.” said Merlin.

Arthur finally turned in his chair to look at him. Merlin should have figured that light teasing would do it, it had been is main method of getting Arthur’s attention since they’d met in year 9. “I was going to say ‘that’s not something I’d noticed’.” said Arthur.

“Well, now you have. It’s pretentious.”

Arthur fiddled with the leather bracelet on his wrist. “Don’t you think it’s meaningful?”

“Nope. Pretentious. And a little bit adorable.”

Arthur swung back around to his work. “I hate you.”

“You love me.”

“…Yeah.”

Their “you love me” bit carried a little more meaning now that they were actually dating. Apparently, Arthur realised this too, because he ducked his head and the typing noises started up again.

Why are there so many pictures of cake?” asked Merlin after a moment, still on Google images. 

“It’s this dumb joke - ‘cake or sex’. Apparently asexual people will all go for the Victoria sponge.”

“You hate sponge cake.” said Merlin, thinking back to Arthur’s sixteenth birthday party, where his sister, Morgana, had stuck candles in a flapjack.

“I know.”

“Who even comes up with this stuff?”

“AVEN, mostly. Sometimes Tumblr.”

They lapsed into quiet for a moment, and Merlin continued to browse, first checking out AVEN, which was that asexuality.org site from earlier. He got bored pretty quickly there and ended up googling “Asexuality Tumblr”, which yielded far more entertaining results.

It was a good ten minutes before he spoke again. “What do axolotls have to do with asexuality?”

“No idea.” said Arthur in a bored voice. “What _do_ axolotls have to do with asexuality?”

Merlin laughed. “It wasn’t a joke. It’s a Tumblr page.”

“Oh. Then probably it’s just an alliteration thing.” Arthur paused. “Merlin, just how deep are you into the asexuality tag on Tumblr?”

“Pretty deep. People keep arguing about stuff I don’t understand. But I found all these different asexual information and resource blogs.”

Arthur spun around in his desk chair, clasping his hands and looking Merlin in the eye. “You do know you don’t have to do this.”

“Do what?” said Merlin, genuinely confused. Arthur had been the one to tell him to look it up.

“You don’t have to act all supportive.” he said. “I’ve basically told you that I’m broken-“

Merlin sat up straight. “You are NOT broken.” he said fiercely. 

“Well you say that, and Tumblr says that, but to the rest of the world, yeah. I’m broken. I can deal with that.”

Merlin put the iPad down on the bed and clambered off, standing in front of Arthur. He put his hands on his shoulders. “Look at me.” Arthur looked up. “You’ve been acting weird and distant ever since you told me. What’s up?”

Arthur shrugged off Merlin’s hands, which really just confirmed that something was wrong. “I’m waiting for you to tell me we work better as friends.” he said quietly. “I’m waiting for you to realise I can’t give you what you need from a relationship.”

Merlin flung his arms around Arthur, crouching a little so they were level. “You dollophead.” he said, using the insult from when they were preteens. “I don’t _need_ sex. If you haven’t noticed, I don’t exactly get much action anyway.”

“I’m not an idiot, Merlin. You have a sex drive.”

Merlin flushed. “And I’m sure I can deal with it on my own.” he said, extracting his arms from around Arthur’s chest, standing upright and stepping back.

Arthur stood up with him, but said nothing. Merlin shuffled his feet. “I’m fine with no sex, but in all seriousness, how much are you comfortable with? We still haven’t… y’know.”

“Kissed?”

“Yeah, that.”

“Well,” said Arthur, sidestepping Merlin and sitting down on the bed, “I’m honestly not entirely aware of my own boundaries, yet.”

Merlin sat down next to him. “So we’ll work on a ask-first basis.” he said, “I can work with that.” It would kind of take away any excitement, any spontaneity. But Merlin felt like a prat for even thinking that, because of course Arthur being comfortable was more important than unexpected romantic gestures. 

Arthur had a big, goofy smile on his face. “Merlin, ever since I’ve known you you’ve been obsessed with big, spontaneous chick-flick moments. For you to even suggest-“ he shook his head. “You’re amazing.”

“Not words I ever thought I’d hear from Arthur Pendragon.” said Merlin, his stomach fluttering. “If I could be so bold to ask - you can say no - could I maybe, possibly, kiss you?”

Merlin’s heart was beating hard as his words hung in the air. Arthur chewed his tongue. “I’d like to wait a while, actually.”

“Oh, alright.” he said, turning his head so Arthur couldn’t see any signs of disappointment. There was a long pause.

“Hmm.” said Arthur, “Well. I’ve waited. You can kiss me now.”

Once he’d finished cursing Arthur for being the _actual worst_ , Merlin did.

 

**Author's Note:**

> The Asexual Axolotl is a real thing, and you can find it here: http://asexualaxolotl.tumblr.com (the blog hasn't updated since 2012, though)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Gestures](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2342270) by [silence_since_silence](https://archiveofourown.org/users/silence_since_silence/pseuds/silence_since_silence)




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